


Candles in the Dark

by Sabelinx



Category: 1984 - George Orwell, Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-19
Updated: 2017-07-19
Packaged: 2018-12-04 06:21:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11549304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sabelinx/pseuds/Sabelinx
Summary: Oceania is smiling. Oceania is powerful. Most importantly, he is forever. If only the other nations would also understand this. A collection of scenes involving some of the Hetalia characters in the 1984 universe. Oceania OC.





	1. The Portrait of the New World

Oceania smiles. That is what he does best.

In human years, he appears to be fifteen, with blue eyes and black, somewhat messy hair. He is taller than Eastasia, but still a lot shorter than Eurasia, and the only time that bothers him is when he is at war with the latter. Oceania always smiles. And why wouldn't he? He is the perfect poster child for the Party: a true goodthinker, elegant and well-mannered, with a radiant smile, capable of winning the hearts of anyone, without even trying. The smile is something he's inherited from America, that's for sure. Oceania cares greatly about his appearance, as any self-respecting honorary member of the Inner Party does. His clothes, his shoes, all of them are the absolute highest quality Oceanian money can buy. It would be...doubleplusungood for them to be any less.

This is Oceania. Or, at least this is the side of him he shows to the world. Yes, Oceania is doubleplusgood...except for the times when he's not. But thanks to the wonder of doublethinking, he can simply forget about it and continue to believe, wholeheartedly, his own lie.

And _the others_ have the nerve to tell him he's insane.

If only they wouldn't be so stubborn and follow his example. England, America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and all the rest. They don't consider him family.

If Oceania is great at something, that is reading people. He is able to spot a crimethinker in seconds, even if the person in question don't realize they're a crimethinker. This, after all, is what sets him apart from all the others before him, from all the great nations and empires that have risen and fallen: Oceania understands how humans think. Better than humans themselves, actually, and he uses it to his advantage. Sure, one could make the argument that in reality, Oceania understands humanity about as well as a dead fish understands quantum physics, but that'd simply be crimethink!

It doesn't take a great deal of effort to figure out what the others think, whenever he goes to visit them in the Ministry of Love's cells. For example, Canada's look of pure disgust whenever he sees him is pretty much a dead giveaway. So is the way America barely holding himself back from leaping at him and trying to murder him on the spot. Not that he hadn't tried to do so already, but after the first hundred or so failed attempts, he'd given up on trying.

But none of that matters, in the long run. Oceania still considers them family. Once in a while, he is actually...amused by their silly refusal to let go of the past.

A past that had never existed.

Oceania is patient. The others simply don't understand yet. Their ill minds – still poisoned by the values and morals of the old world – cannot yet comprehend all the good he is doing, the greatness, the power, the _perfection_ of the new world he is creating.

 _His_ world.

Oceania is the doctor, and they are the insane patients. Doctors don't get mad at patients, they cure them. And that's exactly what Oceania tries to do, because they are, after all, his family and he cares about them too much to allow them to continue holding on to their madness.

It is for their own good, after all. Oceania may be young, but he is smart. Smarter than any nation had ever been. He knows what is good for them. He knows, deep in his heart that Big Brother is proud of his hard work and that is all he needs.

One thing to mention about Oceania, is that he rarely, if ever, gets angry. He should - his 'family' has got this annoying habit of constantly telling him he won't last; that nothing ever lasts forever and that when his twisted world of insanity is going to crash down around him, he will suffer worse than anyone else had before. For a split second – so brief that one could easily miss it – the mask breaks and Oceania's smile falters, but he regains his composure immediately. He is far too good at doublethinking to allow this desperate, pathetic attempt to affect him. "That will not happen," he always answers, and despite the lighthearted, almost sickly-sweet tone, there is also a sort of finality in his voice; like the sound of a coffin being sealed shut for the very last time. How rude and inconsiderate of them! But Oceania humors them; he simply nods, like an overly-patient parent, listening to a stubborn child who is insisting that two plus two equals four, when, in fact, it is common sense that two plus two is five. It is impossible to tell if their words leave any mark on him, whatsoever. That is the beauty of doublethinking!

Don't they know? He who controls the past, controls the present and who controls the present, controls the future. So Oceania has no reason to get angry. Why should he? The future of a superpower - _his_ future - had never been as safe and predictable. He's got all the time in the world.

Simply put, he is Oceania. And he is forever.


	2. Fragments of the Old World

Oceania likes to talk a lot. That is another thing he does. He talks so much and yet, the void of outer space has more substance than what he's saying. Of course, he is also the only one who thinks that what he's saying is incredibly interesting.

Canada ignores Oceania, his mind drifting away. He instead tries to remember. The past. The others. History. How the fields covered in snow shone a clean white in the morning. How he'd sometimes receive a block of ice in the face out of nowhere from America – because regular snowballs were for wimps – and the other would laugh and say he'd been actually aiming for Russia. How to make pancakes. _Anything_ is better than whatever Oceania is saying! Who cares about what he says, anyway? Well obviously, Oceania himself, but that's not the point.

"...Are you even listening to me?" he hears Oceania ask, and he sounds offended.

There had been a time – it felt like such a _long_ time ago – when he'd be nice and polite to almost everyone. "No."

Oceania doesn't deserve politeness. Oceania doesn't deserve _to exist_.

Oceania looks as if he was just told the Two Minutes Hate had been cancelled for that day. "Oh. Well that's...ungood. What were you thinking about, then?"

A sigh and a monotone answer. "Doesn't matter."

Oceania smiles, a cold satisfaction gleaming in his eyes. He reaches over to pat Canada on the shoulder. It feels as if he's patting a dog, not a person. "True. It doesn't."

The words are short. They cut deep.

"Why don't you want to do something more productive?" Oceania goes on. "Like reading some Newspeak articles!"

Not waiting for an answer, he gives Canada a newspaper.

The horror! He glares up at the teenager, before the sharp, clipped half-words have a chance to invade his vision and crawl inside his brain. He tosses the newspaper back at Oceania – an action that doesn't really accomplish anything, since newspapers are not known for being heavy. A hand grenade would've been better.

Catching it, Oceania frowns and there is a disturbing glint in his eyes, but he hides it and promptly goes back to his usual carefree demeanor. "Don't worry. You're smart - you're going to get it, eventually. Besides, it's not like you have more interesting things to do." After flipping a few more pages, he says: "Say, do you want me to read you some paragraphs?"

Canada bangs his head against the wall behind him.

Oceania rolls his eyes. "Oh, don't be rude." He glances over the newspaper some more, until he finds out what he is looking for. "Here – this'll cheer you up!" He holds the newspaper in front of the older nation, who is still doing his best to ignore him. Figuring Oceania wouldn't just get the message and leave, Canada reluctantly takes a look.

Oh. Surprise - it's something he actually remembers. The Invasion of Normandy. Just above the article, there is a picture of England and America, just before the launch of the invasion. Australia and New Zealand are also in there, but all the European nations are not. Canada isn't the least bit surprised that Oceania had erased them from the picture-

Wait.

What?

…

Canada stares at the picture, a sinking feeling inside his stomach. "Why am I not in the picture?"

"Why should you be?" Oceania asks, mildly surprised. "You didn't take part in that mission."

No matter how much Canada contradicts him, Oceania calmly sticks to his own version - if the article doesn't mention him anywhere, then it means it didn't happen. But Canada remembers it - the French shores, heavily fortified with tank top turrets and extensive barbed wire...

He isn't in the picture.

Oceania waves this off. "See? Now you're hallucinating things. And you say _I_ 'm the crazy one." It is now his turn to sigh. If one didn't know any better, it would've seemed like he actually felt sorry. "Whatever am I going to do with you all..." he mutters, shaking his head.

* * *

The occasions in which the guards bring in another prisoner to share the cell with him are extremely rare, but they still happen. All the other cells are probably full. Sometimes they are proles and sometimes they are members of the Outer Party.

England allows himself to talk to the proles. They are the only thing keeping him alive. And in return, the prole woman seems happy to have someone to share her thoughts with. She tells him about the stray dog her four children had adopted and named Bark.

Bark's story is far more interesting than anything Oceania says. No matter how much Oceania disagrees.

She gets taken away, leaving him once again, alone with his confused thoughts. Some time later – nobody knows for sure how much – Oceania comes in and he's without a doubt a worse company than the prole woman could have ever been.

He isn't happy that England's talking to the proles. "How can you lower yourself to their level?" he asks, his voice dripping with disgust. "If you were to share the cell with a rat or a mouse or a dog or a spider, would you talk to those? Of course not. Then why would you do so with the proles?"

Oceania honestly cannot see any difference between the proles and animals. In the end, it is probably better this way.

"They're humans," he mutters, avoiding looking at Oceania at all costs. Not out of fear, but out of repulsion. "Don't compare them to rats."

Oceania frowns. "No, they're not," he says, in his trademark 'shut-up-I-know-better' tone. "They're animals. The real humans are the upstanding members of the Inner and Outer Party." He pauses. "Well, the _goodthinking_ ones, anyways."

"You mean the ones who gave in to your madness."

"That's what humans do, England. They're weak and they give up. I'm disappointed you don't know this by now." Oceania smiles again and behind the smile there is something far darker and more twisted than he could ever imagine. "What was that Oldthink philosophy? Didn't it say that humans are weak and flawed creatures? Going by that logic, wouldn't that make the members of the Inner and Outer Party more human than the proles _because_ they gave up on resisting me?"

England knows that starting an argument on this would be useless and would only result in giving him a head-splitting migraine, so he doesn't bother. He's done it so many times in the past and can imagine the end result would be the same this time too. He sits down, head cradled between his hands, as if this way, he's putting a barrier in the way of Oceania's sharp, clipped words, stopping them from crawling into his mind.

Oceania crosses his arms, pouting. After a while, seeing he's not getting anywhere, he leaves, but not before lecturing England one more time: "Stop thinking so much. It's bad for you."

* * *

Sometimes, Oceania lets him loose in the world, just for the fun of it. It's like taking the dog out on a walk. When Oceania inevitably gets bored and decides the dog has spent way too much time outside, he sends the Thought Police to drag him back. After a few years, the process repeats itself.

Sometimes, America wishes Oceania wouldn't do this. The world outside is plummeting into hate and ruin and it's becoming worse and worse every single time he's let out into it. Witnessing this gradual and seemingly unstoppable decay hurts much more than Oceania's empty words ever could.

He wastes time at a bar where the proles hang out. The prole districts are the only bearable regions to go into anymore, except for the countryside to some extent and the great wilderness outside populated areas. There are two Thought Police officers there, too. By now he's developed a sixth sense for spotting them. They don't bother him. Yet.

The proles bring up bittersweet memories. They are his only link to the past, his only link left to _humanity_. The Inner and Outer Party members may look like humans, but they don't count. They are the dead ones.

An old man who is wearing decrepit rags and whose breath smells of dead rats sits down next to him. He's probably about seventy, but in these days, you can't even tell anymore – the poor living conditions make lots of people look a lot older and _tired_ than they really are. "Do I know ya?"

A shrug. "Take a guess. Do you?"

The old man coughs roughly a few times and continues: "You look a lot like some officer from that war in the '40's. Jones," – a twitch – "that was his name. Served under his command during D-Day. Cheerful young man, I remember. Wonder what happened to him-"

America gets up and leaves. No 'goodbye', not even a look back. "I wouldn't know."

When he exits, he notices the Thought Police officers getting up, preparing to leave too.

* * *

He's finally figured out a strategy. Oceania tries to force-feed him the newest edition of the Newspeak Dictionary? Then, out of spite, America doesn't even use English anymore and just uses one of the many dialects that his native ancestors used to speak before colonial times.

Oceania's surprised expression is proof of that, as it shows he's not as all-knowing as he thinks. And so, more time passes, in which Oceania has to go through the hassle of going back through the records of his already-mutilated history, to find enough information about the language and learn it. Meanwhile, America uses this time to try and pull his thoughts together. It takes Oceania a while to learn enough of it so that America can't use it as a safety net anymore and when that happens, he simply switches to another one. He knows Oceania is good at destroying languages, not learning them.

Oceania narrows his eyes – bright blue, identical to his own, except for the nightmare that is lurking behind – and says: "You're just delaying the inevitable. You'll run out of these, eventually."

With the speed that Oceania is rewriting history, there's a chance he'll forget said languages even existed in the first place.

It's become more of a contest, really. A dark and deranged contest to see which one of them will forget everything first. The winner continues to exist. Losing is not an option.

Sometimes, he feels like he's losing.

The fact that he can't remember if it was tea or coffee that he'd dumped in the sea at Boston all those years ago might have something to do with it.

* * *

Oceania is very fond of using the word 'family' when he's around them. No matter how many times hate-filled glares stab the air, pointed at him, he still does. And when he's told that he doesn't even know what the word means, he smiles politely and replies with: "Soon enough, neither will you."

* * *

The world is cruel and it is darker than it has ever been before. Of course it is. It's _Oceania's_ world.

The world is also huge and Oceania simply can't keep an eye on every single centimeter of the land at all times and that's what they are all counting on.

Oceania shakes his head in unspoken disagreement. It doesn't matter how fast they run or where they hide. There is nowhere to run and if they hide, he'll find them anyways. He is absolutely sure of it. Big Brother watches everything, after all. Under his careful watch, Oceania has nothing to fear.

Except that, every time one of them switches to a language other than English, Oceania finds it increasingly difficult to learn it. As Newspeak develops and the vocabulary shrinks, his mind simply can't comprehend the concept anymore.

Except that England knows that the phrase 'The sun never sets on the British Empire' is false and he still hopes that one day, Oceania will be no different.

Except that India, with his thousands of years of history to back him up, still spits Oceania in the face when he's being dragged past him back to prison by two guards.

Except that, even after all this time, they are still there.


End file.
